Trump Asked China’s Xi Whether He Wanted to Buy U.S. Weapons, Prompting Questions Over the Remark’s Authenticity

[Financial News] U.S. President Donald Trump, who provoked China with a large-scale arms sale to Taiwan, asked Chinese President Xi Jinping whether he was thinking about buying U.S. weapons. A U.S. government official said there were no plans to sell weapons to China.
David Perdue, the U.S. ambassador to China, said in a Fox News interview on the 27th (local time) that the United States was not delaying arms exports to Taiwan out of consideration for Xi Jinping. Perdue said Trump "has continued to say, 'We are selling weapons to other countries around the world.'" He added, "The president actually asked Xi Jinping whether he would ever want to buy U.S. weapons."
An anonymous U.S. government official told The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that the administration currently had no plans to sell weapons to China. Another official emphasized that U.S. law prohibits arms exports to China and that there were no plans or related proposals to sell weapons to the country.
Perdue did not specify whether Trump made the proposal during his visit to China in May or at the U.S.-China summit held in the United States on the 24th of this month.
Trump has focused on overseas arms sales since his first administration and continued the policy after launching his second administration last year. In a Fox News interview, Perdue emphasized that the United States approved an $11.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan in December last year, the largest such sale in history. The figure exceeded the $8.4 billion in arms sales approved by former President Joe Biden over four years.
The Chinese government immediately objected to the sale, which included U.S. drones such as the Altius-600M and ballistic missiles. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China warned in a statement last December, "If the United States helps Taiwan achieve independence by force, it will ultimately burn itself."
The Trump administration went further by drawing up a plan to sell Taiwan $14 billion worth of weapons. The U.S. Congress completed a preliminary review in January.
Yet the Trump administration has delayed approving the plan. Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said at a congressional hearing in May that the process for selling weapons to Taiwan was "temporarily on hold" because of procurement issues stemming from the war with Iran. After returning from his visit to China in May, Trump said on the plane that he had discussed arms sales to Taiwan with Xi Jinping. He said the matter was "on hold" and added, "This issue depends on China." In a 27th interview, Perdue rejected the claim that Trump had delayed approval of the arms sale because of China, saying Trump was "tougher on the Taiwan issue than anyone I have ever seen."
Dennis Wilder, who served as the White House adviser on Asia during the administration of George W. Bush, told the Financial Times (FT) on the 27th, "Trump may have been needling Xi to remind him of the superiority of U.S. weapons," while noting, "However, the statement itself is dangerous."
Zack Cooper, a senior researcher at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI), said, "Trump’s proposal to sell weapons to China is extremely reckless. Xi probably would have wanted to say, 'I’ll buy one of every type.'" He added, "It is shocking that Trump delayed approval of arms sales to Taiwan while suggesting that China buy weapons."

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